The Palin pick has energized enthusiasm for the Republican ticket, pulling McCain ahead in national polls. The first reason this does not worry me is that, in the Boston Globe this week, Democratic political experts were quoted as saying that this uptick is a temporary bounce and it will eventually die down. I assume that this means that once Palin is done being completely controlled in public by campaign handlers, some of the voters she has attracted--mainly independents--will be turned off by her hard-core conservative positions.
But that is not the biggest reason I am still optimistic about Obama. In a nutshell, polls mean nothing. The electoral college means everything. John Kerry won states worth 252 electoral votes in 2004. If Obama carries all these states, he needs to add only 18 more electoral votes to win.
Breaking down the states Kerry won, the following are almost certainly in the Democratic (blue) column (defined as >70% probability of Obama winning as of this morning on Intrade).
California (55 electoral votes)
Oregon (7)
Washington (11)
Minnesota (10)
Wisconsin (10)
Illinois (21)
Pennsylvania (21)
Maryland (10)
Delaware (3)
D.C. (3)
New Jersey (15)
New York (31)
Maine (4)
Massachusetts (12)
Vermont (3)
Rhode Island (4)
Connecticut (7)
Hawaii (4)
Strongly leaning blue (<70%, >65%):
Michigan (17)
Leaning blue (<65%, >60%):
New Hampshire (4)
So Obama should acheive Kerry's 252 as a baseline.
Winning either Ohio (20) or Florida (27), would put Obama over the top. Florida looks like a long shot; this morning the quoted probability of Obama winning was only 36%. Ohio looks like a toss up at 57/43 in McCain's favor.
But Obama does not need Ohio to win, though you can bet the house that he will give it the maximum amount of effort there (Something Kerry neglected to do by not speaking in Cleveland in the days before the election).
The following states can put him over the 270 electoral votes needed without winning Ohio:
Iowa (7 EV's, 74%)
New Mexico (5, 60%)
Colorado (9, 55%)
Nevada (5, 44%)
Given that Ohio and Colorado are tossups, and assuming New Mexico and New Hampshire hold, I like his chances to carry either Ohio (making 284 total electoral votes) or Colorado (273), or both (293). According to Intrade's probabilities and my assumption that NM and NH will hold, the mathematical odds are almost 3:1 that Obama will carry either Colorado or Ohio, or both; and win the election.
9/12/2008
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When I made this post, I neglected to include Virginia as a possible blue state. At the time of the , its quoted probability of going for Obama was roughly equivalent to Nevada's.
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